麻豆约拍

Puccini wasn鈥檛 at La Scala on the night of his opera Turandot's premiere in May 1926. The performance ended with the most famous curtain in operatic history. In the middle of act 3, just a couple of bars after the line "Li霉, poesia!鈥� the orchestra came to a halt and the conductor, Arturo Toscanini, turned to the audience. 鈥淗ere the opera ends,鈥� he said, 鈥渂ecause at this point Puccini laid down his pen". And then the curtain slowly lowered. Puccini had died a year and five months earlier, before he could finish the last act of his last opera.

Turandot is a dark and politically dubious fairytale. For decades it was banned in the People's Republic of China because of what they saw as appalling ethnic stereotyping. The music is the richest, most adventurous, most dissonant and most urgent Puccini ever wrote, its harmonies avant-garde. Puccini might have had a sentimental streak, but he hadn鈥檛 failed to notice what was happening all around him.

This is one of 100 significant musical moments explored by 麻豆约拍 Radio 3鈥檚 Essential Classics as part of Our Classical Century, a 麻豆约拍 season celebrating a momentous 100 years in music from 1918 to 2018. Visit bbc.co.uk/ourclassicalcentury to watch and listen to all programmes in the season.

This extract is from a recording by the Munich Radio Orchestra with conductor Roberto Abbado and soprano Eva Marton.

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